The proclamation of the President, which will be found in
another column, practically abolishes slavery throughout the United States after next
New-Years Day. By the terms of that proclamation every negro shall become free who,
on 1st January, 1863, shall reside in a section of country where the people are
in rebellion. The evidence of rebellion, it appears, shall be the non-election of members
of Congress by a majority of legally constituted voters. To carry out the Act fairly, we
presume that, before New-Years Day, the Speaker of Congress will direct an inquiry
to be made with a view to ascertain what constituencies have failed to elect members. Upon
his report the President will base his proclamation of emancipation, forever setting free
and guaranteeing protection to every slave residing within such delinquent constituencies.
In order to prevent trickery, no constituency will be deemed to be represented in Congress
unless a majority of legally constituted voters have taken part in the election.

Under these conditions it is probable that nine-tenths of
the slaves in the Southern States will become free on 1st January next. We do not suppose
that any thing like a serious election of members of Congress will be attempted by a
majority of legally constituted voters even in New Orleans, Memphis, or Norfolk. So long
as the rebel armies keep the field, a majority of the people of the South will refuse to
acknowledge their defeat, and will of course decline to participate in elections which
would amount to a repudiation of their slave confederacy. In these three cities, and in
most of the other places at the South which are occupied by the Union troops, the bulk of
the legally constituted voters are in the rebel army, and could notif they
wouldobtain furloughs for the purpose of returning home and electing members of
Congress. It is just possible that, in the course of the next ninety days, the dread of
negro emancipation may work a change in the views of some Southern communities, and that
having to choose between two evilsabolition and submissionthey may prefer the
latter as the least intolerable. And it is also possible that our army and navy may make
such rapid progress with the work of suppressing the rebellion that, by 1st
January, 1863, the bulk of the Southern country may be overrun, and the hope of
establishing a slave confederacy so thoroughly destroyed, that the rebels may be willing
to make a virtue of necessity, and set about electing members of Congress. But if the
rebel armies are not crushed within ninety days, and the people of the South humbled into
submission, then the fiat has gone forth that New-Years Day, 1863, shall bring
freedom to the negro race in the rebel States.

Nor will the blessed boon be confined to those cotton
States where this wretched rebellion arose. If Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi,
Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Arkansas, and Tennessee become free States, it is utterly
impossible that Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri can continue to maintain the institution
of slavery. With free States on either side of them, they must abolish slavery, or it will
abolish itself. The only difference between them and their Southern neighbors will be,
that the Unites States will pay to the loyal owners in loyal States a fair compensation
for the slave whom the may voluntarily agree to emancipate.

We shall now see how this proclamation will be
receivedboth at the South and at the North. There are those who believe that the
rebelsespecially if they are hard pressed by our armieswill meet it with a
counter-proclamation, immediately emancipating their slaves, and arming them for defense.
A policy of this character would render the task before us one of no common difficulty, as
it would enable the rebels to recruit their weakened armies with a fresh force of nearly
500,000 men. It is, however, well-nigh impossible to believe that the rebel leaders would
of their own free-will adopt the very policy the dread of whose adoption by us plunged
them into the present warthat they would place arms in the hands of their slaves,
and run the risk of a war of races on their own soilthat they would in the middle of
the contest abandon the principle for which it was undertaken, and which they have
declared to be the corner-stone of their confederacy. A better opinion appears to be, that
Mr. Lincolns proclamation will nerve them to still greater exertions than they have
yet made, and that they will forthwith take measures to place their slaves out of reach of
our troops. They will say, no doubt, that the Presidents proclamation will have no
more practical effect than the previous brutafulmina of Frémont and
Hunter.

And how will negro emancipation be viewed at the North?
There was a time, not very long since, when a large majority of the Northern people would
have opposed it strenuouslynot so much from any admiration for slavery, as from a
belief that, under the Constitution, we had no right to meddle with it, and that its
abolition involved dangers and inconveniences perhaps as formidable as those which were
created by its existence. Even at the present time a mortal antipathy for the negro is
entertained by a large class of persons at the Northas is evidenced by the recent
vote against negroes in Illinois, the riots in Cincinnati and Brooklyn, and the unkind
treatment of the negroes in Illinois, the riots in Cincinnati and Brooklyn, and the unkind
treatment of the negro fugitives at Hilton Head by the regiments of General Hunters
army. At the same time, the war has produced a remarkable change in the opinions of
educated and liberal men at the North. Such leading men as General Wallace of Illinois,
Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, General Butler of Massachusetts, and nine-tenths of the
generals in the fieldwho, a year ago, really believed that slavery was the true
station for the negrohave lately freely expressed what used to be called
"abolition views." How long it will take for these liberal views to permeate
society, and stamp themselves on the mind of the working-class, remains to be seen. We do
not, for our part, apprehend any serious opposition at the North to the Presidents
policy, except in circles whose loyalty to the country may well be questioned.

Demagogues will of course endeavor to excite our
working-classes against the Government by threatening them with the competition of free
negro labor. It seems hardly worth while to reply to so shallow and so mean an argument as
this. Our laboring class in this country is intelligent enough to know that what we want
in every part of this country is not fewer but more laborers. For years we at the North
have been moving heaven and earth to get more labor from Europe, and we have succeeded in
getting a very large number of men every year; yet wages have steadily advanced instead of
falling. Who ever thought of opposing immigration for fear of the competition of the new
Irishmen or Germans? So at the South. They have increased their stock of labor steadily by
every means, lawful and unlawful, for thirty years, and yet the price of slaves has
steadily risen for $400 to $1500 for adult field hands, and the crybefore the
warwas still for more labor. The man who tries to frighten the North with threats of
competition by emancipated negroes insults the understanding of our laboring class.